Another Sodium Cooled Fast Nuclear Reactor Licensed in Russia. [View all]
The article I'll excerpt is here: Beloyarsk issued with licence for BN-1200 reactor
Anyone who knows me will know that I am a supporter of Ukraine, and thus am not particularly fond of Russia, a country that has engineered the fall of the United States in my opinion, by promoting a stupid and venal man to accede to the office of President of the United States, a rather unique way of bringing down a world power.
This said, I have read and heard that Russia has the most rigorous requirements for its nuclear engineers, they need to be the best of the best. Recent history suggests it shows.
Russia only lags behind China in the ability to build nuclear reactors fast and on budget. Russia is, in fact, a major exporter of nuclear reactors, thermal reactors in the VVER class. They also have the world's longest experience at operating reactors in the fast neutron spectrum, both sodium cooled and lead cooled reactors. (I greatly prefer the latter, although nobody cares what I think; most fast reactor designs still rely on sodium cooling which in my view is a bad idea. However the worst bad idea in nuclear energy is still superior to the best ideas in dangerous fossil fuels promoted by hydrogen water boys and so called "renewable energy." )
The United States, once the world leader in reactor development and construction, now lags behind China and Russia by at least 20 years, if not more.
It is, in my view, absolutely essential that we build fast reactors in order to extend uranium supplies essentially to infinity. I have argued many times that with sufficient access to fast reactors, we might meet all of the world's energy demands for centuries using the uranium already mined, along with the thorium mined and then discarded from lanthanide ores.
Again, I don't like sodium cooling - there are better options I think - but Russia knows how to operate these, and should that country return to civilization, the plutonium they breed will be a resource for generations to come.
Excerpts from the article in the link above:
...The sodium-cooled BN-series fast reactor plans are part of Rosatom's project to develop fast reactors with a closed fuel cycle whose mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel will be reprocessed and recycled. In addition to the BN-600 reactor at Beloyarsk unit 3, which began operation in 1980, the 789 MWe BN-800 fast at Beloyarsk unit 4 entered commercial operation in October 2016. This is essentially a demonstration unit for fuel and design features for the larger BN-1200, which will be unit 5 at Beloyarsk.
Rosatom says the service life of the BN-1200 power unit will be at least 60 years. Its design uses technical solutions that have proven themselves in the operation of the BN-600 and BN-800 reactors, but also features innovations. For example, the BN-1200 will have four instead of three loops for the circulation of liquid sodium, like its predecessors; the volume of the in-reactor storage facility will be increased to allow the unloading of fuel assemblies from the reactor directly into the used fuel pool, eliminating the intermediate drum for used assemblies; and the turbine condensers will be cooled using a chimney-type evaporative cooling tower...
...Ivan Sidorov, Director of Beloyarsk NPP, said: "Installation of the prototype serial power unit with BN-1200M reactor at Beloyarsk NPP will make it possible to take another important step towards two-component nuclear power engineering and fully use the ecological and economic advantages of the closed nuclear fuel cycle. The personnel of Beloyarsk NPP has accumulated vast experience in operating the unique BN-600 and BN-800 sodium fast reactors, so it is logical that the prototype BN-1200M will be created here."
The proposed date for completion of the reactor is 2034, nine years from now.
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